Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 January 19

= January 19 =

Pika = Pikachu ?
Can anyone comment on whether a connection between the Pika and the Pikachu is plausible phonologically or otherwise? The English article Pikachu suggests that pika is the Japanese word for the sound of a spark. Even so, one might suspect a folk etymology or backronym at work. Japanese speakers should see http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ナキウサギ. μηδείς (talk) 06:43, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * As a backronym or folk etymology, I doubt. "Pika", or more precisely, "pikapika", is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a spark (incidentally, the Japanese onomatopoeia for shock is "biribiri". Pikachu, being an Electric-type Pokémon, was named after this sound (see the Pikachu article). Most probably the connection is coincidental, as Pikachu is supposed to be a mouse and a Pika is not a mouse. Also, are there even Pikas in Japan? I've never even heard of the animal until now. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 06:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Pikapika means 'flashing' in Japanese. This is how the character got the name, and how it appears on TV, causing hundreds of children to have epileptic seizures. The 'chu' at the end is an affectionate, childish ending.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  08:29, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes. Dennō Senshi Porygon, that episode that pretty much caused poor Porygon and its evolutions to disappear from the Pokémon anime. The same episode that caused Japanese TV stations to put warnings at the start of their programs to this day, on almost all shows, from Madoka to Bakemonogatari, and even Dragon Ball and Naruto. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 08:42, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * A normal warning may not be enough. I suggest a red, flashing warning. StuRat (talk) 18:38, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * OED Online says that pika is from the Evenki word piika. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:38, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * However, it's likely that the Japanese onomatopoeia developed independently, so it's still unlikely that there's a relation. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 08:42, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone give a Roman/phonetic transcription of the Japanese name for the animal? I linked to its article in my first post. μηδείς (talk) 19:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It is called 'Nakiusagi' in Japanese.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  23:05, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * ナキウサギ is "naki usagi", pronounced pretty much as you see it. ("usagi" is rabbit, and "naki" refers to the sound that it makes, translated as "whistling" at the ja article, though the root verb 鳴く can refer to several different animal noises I think.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.160.213.0 (talk) 23:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * 'Naki' refers to an animal's cry, and can also be used for human crying, as in babies. In this case, however, as the poster above suggested, it means a rabbit that makes a noise, which, if you have kept rabbits in the past before, you will notice that most of them are silent.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  23:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * KageTora: same word, but written with different kanji depending on the context? 泣く(naku) for human crying, 鳴く(naku) for animal noises? 泣 has a water radical on the left; 鳴 is made up of a mouth radical plus 鳥 (bird)? I'd say I'd forgotten the word for this, but I doubt I ever learned it.--Shirt58 (talk) 00:58, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course the kanji are different, but the pronunciation is the same. They are the same word. Like in English, the cry of a bird or the cry of a baby. 01:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't notice when I replied above that "whistling hare" is apparently a native English name, so rather than "whistling hare" being an attempt to translate ナキウサギ as I thought, it looks that ナキウサギ is actually a translation of "whistling hare". 86.160.213.0 (talk) 01:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, I am just going to declare victory then. Except for the lack of a tail, the real life pika looks a heck of a lot more like a pikachu (i.e., little pika) than any pointy-nosed mouse does.  I declare it a fact that the designer started with the animal, and then, noting that the name was similar to that of the Japanese version of zap, decided to retrofit it with electrical powers.  Mwahhahahaha.... μηδείς (talk) 05:06, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * According to the ja article ja:ピカチュウ, the designer said it was an image of hamster. There are northern pika and its subspecies Ochotona hyperborea yoshikurai in Japan, but they are not widely known, not to mention the English names are non-notable at all in the country. I'm afraid that it's your OR. There is no mention about pika in this interview. Oda Mari (talk) 08:33, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The English article talks about mice, not hamsters. One of these guys on his deathbed is going to admit it was a pika all along. μηδείς (talk) 02:49, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The original designer is Atsuko Nishida and she was not in the interview. If you really want to know, e-mail her and ask. Oda Mari (talk) 07:29, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Fouvry
How do you pronounce a French name, Fouvry?--Analphil (talk) 08:06, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "Foo-vree", roughly. Those what like them IPA squiggles will probably add 'em later.--Shirt58 (talk) 08:54, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * In IPA, []. Double sharp (talk) 10:05, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, if you want to get the French pronounciation right, the vowel sound at the end ("ee" or [] is a monophthong in French, not a diphthong as it is in English. The difference (in layman's terms) is that the English vowel ends with a "y"-like sound (as in the beginning of the word "you") called a "glide", while the French vowel lacks this bit.  English speakers can approximate the french vowel sound by "clipping" the "ee" sound short, so you only say the first part of it.  -- Jayron  32  16:24, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Huh? The "fleece" vowel is a diphthong? I know it can be /əi/ in some situations. Would have thought the really difficult part would be getting anywhere near /ʁ/ - nothing in English like it. --Shirt58 (talk) 01:29, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It depends on the dialect. Some dialects use a [] (lengthened monophthong) to realize the "fleece" sound, and others use a diphthong, also the word position matters.  Terminal vowels are more likely to be diphthongs in some dialects.  However, neither is correct for French, which is an unlengthened monophthong.  -- Jayron  32  05:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep, thank you. Indeed, I hear myself in my barbarous tongue dipthong-ise word-final  to /ɪi/ all the fahcking time. Which of course leads onto that AuE phonological bunyip, the "psalm-sum merger" .--Shirt58 (talk) 12:23, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it would still be understandable if you used [ɹ] instead of [ʁ], since French only has one rhotic anyway.
 * I learnt [ʁ] by starting with [x] (for that you can put your tongue in the velar position (where you say [k]) and them try to say [h] without moving your tongue), and then voicing it to [ɣ] and retracting the point of articulation for [ʁ]. This probably won't work for everybody, though. Double sharp (talk) 02:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If you want to sound really French, you can put some sort of breathy noise after any sentence-ending [i]. (I'm not sure what it is, maybe a [ ç ] ? Or just an [ h ] ?) It's not a standard pronunciation, but everyone does it. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Ouich! (as they write oui with that breathy sound). Everyone does do it. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)